Just One
by PleasedAsPunch
Summary: A fic in a few chapters prompted by a piece of hint fiction.  Rose/Ten fluff!
1. Chapter 1

**This story was prompted by a piece of hint fiction in an anthology of hint fiction though which I was skimming. The hint fiction in question was written by John Connors, which inspired, and is more or less exactly the first four lines of this piece (except for the bit about the duvet). The book is called "Hint Fiction: An Anthology of Stories in 25 Words or Fewer."**

**I don't own Doctor Who or the aforementioned book.**

_Chapter 1: With You._

"Just one smile and I'll stop," he said, lying next to her on pink duvet-covered bed.

"No."

"One?"

She refused.

He scooted closer so that his arms, bent at the elbows, touched her back, but there were still several inches between their bodies.

The slight pressure on her back made her have to restrain a shiver and she gritted her teeth together. She felt his breath on the back of her neck, but not the slow, warm rhythm of regular breathing. He was blowing cool air through pursed lips. Like a child. Just to be annoying.

"Doctor! I said quit it!"

"I can practically feel your smile from here. Your ears just wiggled. Your ears always wiggle when you smile."

Silence. She continued to breathe steadily, and her body shrugged backwards, snuggling further into the puffy blanket.

"Rose, you're acting like a child."

"Well, compared to you, nine hundred whatever years old, I am."

"You're hardly a child, Rose. Thank Rassilon for that," he said.

"What?" The tone in her voice was sharp and surprised. "What do you mean?"

"Just…I…uh, you know. I could hardly take a child on our adventures, right? Wouldn't last a minute. Kids, y'know, just slow you down. You hardly slow me down." _Especially my heart. _He gagged at himself. _What a sap Rose was turning him into_.

"Oh, yeah, right."

"Look, Rose, I'm sorry." The Doctor inched closer, almost imperceptibly so, but she felt the slight shift on the mattress. "I was _trying_ to maintain my disguise for Bana Minor 5's official court, and when you broke _yours_, it just made my life more difficult in that moment. I'm sorry I got angry with you earlier."

"I told you I was sorry about that. One of the soldiers started coming onto me. It was gettin' a bit weird…I…it was time to get out of there." She finally flipped around to look at him, her eyes downcast.

The Doctor's face was etched with concern and shock, disgust and terror.

"Why didn't you tell me that? Rose, did they hurt you?"

"No! Of course not. Got outta there, didn't I? I handled myself. You were pretty preoccupied. And I can take care of myself, usually."

"Except for when I have to save you," the Doctor said, smiling grimly.

"Oi! I save you a fair bit as well!"

"That's true. I think we save each other fairly equally." _Not even true_, he thought. _She's saved him in ways she'll never know. You know, unless he tells her._

"Yeah."

He noticed the dried tear tracks down her cheeks.

"I'm sorry I made you cry." He would never forgive himself. Seeing Rose cry made his hearts hurt to their very cores.

"No. Wasn't you. Just me bein' silly."

But it _was_ his fault, he knew it was. Maybe not directly. As long as Rose was with him, she would always be in danger. Sometimes he thought he should take her home, as in, forever. She would never see him again. And he would never see her, except for moments of weakness when he would go and check on her from afar. Just to make sure that she was alright and safe and happy. But he knew he couldn't live without her, not properly anyway. She might not know that, how much she actually completed him. Maybe that was a good thing. If she knew, she would probably feel obligated to stay with him. She'd feel like a prisoner to her own promise that she made to him: that she'd never leave him, that she'd stay with him forever. She'd regret she ever said those words to him. She would feel shackled. And then she'd actually want to leave. So he just wouldn't tell her how much she meant to him.

Except that she deserved it. If anyone deserved to be told how important they were, it was Rose Tyler.

"I'm…I'm glad you're here, Rose. On the TARDIS. With me."

"Yeah? I'm glad I'm here too. With you."

She moved closer to him, the fatigue from the day settling into her bones, finally, having found respite from her tears and knowing the Doctor wasn't actually as angry as he had made himself to seem. She leaned her cheek against his chest and listened to his hearts. They were like dueling metronomes somehow magically in tandem. And they were beating quite quickly. The percussion against his ribcage was relaxing, and she exhaled deeply, her muscles deflating and sleep coming quickly.

"Your hearts, do they always beat this fast?" she asked breathily, punctuating with a large yawn.

_No, they certainly do not_, he thought.

"It depends, really." She probably didn't even hear him. She was fading fast.

"On what?"

_Damn_.

"Wellll, um. Situation. Company. That sort of thing. Just like humans."

_Actually, just you. It really just depends on you. Whether or not you're in the room. Or if I'm thinking about you. So maybe, yes. Maybe they did always beat this fast._

"S'not so different, then. You'n me." Her speech was beginning to slur together as she fell asleep.

The Doctor sighed. He wanted this very much to be true. And maybe it was, partially. Rose had a way of putting things that made them seem so simple. He would say that all humans had a way of making things look simple, because _they_ were simple. Simple and very often daft. But with Rose, she had a way of simplifying things so that they were beautiful and perfect. Rose always had a way of giving him hope. He never had enough of that particular emotion, and it was one of his favorites. She was his source of hope, as sappy and thoroughly un-Time Lord as that sounded. He needed her, perhaps more than he cared to admit, but he was becoming increasingly more comfortable with the idea. That he needs her.

Rose shifted in the middle of the night and groped her arms forward, searching for the smooth fabric of the Doctor's suit that she might snuggle a little closer. She hoped she wasn't making him uncomfortable with this snuggling, but it was just as much as they were used to; the only difference this time is that they were on her bed. Which might have realized was actually a pretty big difference, but she was quite tired.

But she reached out only to find air.

"Rose," she heard him whisper. At least he was still in the room.

"Come back."

"I don't think that would be such a good idea."

"Mmm?" she asked into her pillow.

What would he say?

That every time he felt her breath on his skin he wanted to tell her so many gooey, romantic things that it made him feel very much not like a Time Lord and instead very human?

That every time she moved a little closer to him while she slept, he was very close to waking her up and snogging her senseless?

That every time she sighed he felt an overwhelming fear of rejection?

That every time her eyes fluttered, he wanted very much for them to be wide open so he could look her in the eyes and tell her, finally, how much he thoroughly loved her.

So instead he said, stupidly, "S'just not."

"Bein' silly," she groaned.

"As usual."

"Yep."

He should just say it. He meant it, after all. He meant it like a man sick in love, because that's what he was. He wanted to lie next to Rose just to be next to her. Even if she only wanted him as a mate, he wanted to be close to her. But maybe he could say it. Maybe his personal universe would not explode as he somehow felt it would if he told her. Maybe he could be a Time Lord who could also be in love. Maybe she would love him back if he was very, very lucky. He wanted that so much, to feel the love of somebody else. But specifically, and only, he wanted that love to be Rose's.

"Rose Tyler, I love you," he said softly into the darkness of the room.

But she had already fallen back into sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

**I don't own Doctor Who!**

_Chapter Two: Enough for Two_

Rose woke the next morning and made her way to the kitchen. The Doctor, who she usually found there experimenting with jams and marmalades, was nowhere to be found. She put on the kettle and opened the cupboard to retrieve the tea when she heard footsteps behind her and the slight scrape of a chair as he pulled it out and sat down.

"Good morning, Rose," he said lightly in a way that did not match the determined look of concentration that he wore as he pointed the Sonic Screwdriver at his mug.

"Morning, Doctor. You know, I just put some water on. There's enough for two. You don't have to go boilin' it with the Sonic."

"But, Rose, I _can_ boil it with the Sonic, so why shouldn't I?" He had a slightly harassed look to him, and when she looked closer she saw that his face looked unusually haggard, which was impressive, because he didn't require that much sleep.

She momentarily forgot about his attempt at sonic tea-making.

"Doctor, what did you do last night?"

"The usual!" he exclaimed cheerily.

"Does that include losing your marbles, by any chance?"

"What makes you say that?" He looked up from his mug, whose water was showing no signs of boiling.

"I dunno. You weren't here when I came in this morning. Your hands aren't sticky with jam. And you've got a look about you that makes me think you've shotgunned one too many cups of coffee."

She realized, then, that those things weren't actually so strange, just a bit off. But "a bit off" from his normal "a-bit-off-ishness" was enough to raise questions, especially to Rose, who knew him best.

She walked over to the table and grabbed his mug of water, which she promptly dumped into the sink and refilled with the freshly boiled water from the kettle.

"There," she said, dropping a teabag into the mug. "Enough for two, didn't I tell you?"

"Yes, right. Quite."

She pulled up a chair and sat next to him. Much too close, he thought, if he was going to get a hold of himself.

He inhaled so that he could catch her scent. She smelled like sleep, but not in a stale way. She smelled sort of like restfulness, somehow, but he wasn't exactly sure what that meant. And she smelled like lilac, which clung in a lazy way to her hair, the way the smell of shampoo still lingers a day after showering. She also just smelled like herself, and he loved that smell. It was literally becoming intoxicating to him. Maybe that's why he was acting so strangely, but he also knew it was because he had no real ability to focus his thoughts, and it was starting, just a bit, to drive him mad.

He took a sip of his tea.

"You smell nice," he said, without giving his brain a chance to catch up with what his mouth was saying.

"Uh, thanks."

He looked at her, remembering the nineteen-year-old shop girl that he met in a basement and told to run. He remembered that she saved him when most people—anyone normal with an ounce of self-preservation—would have freaked out and ran away screaming. And now she was sitting next to him, pushing the sugar bowl and spoon towards him because he had forgotten for a moment that he liked his tea sweet and saving him from himself, a mad, old Time Lord, who was very clearly, at least to himself, sick in love.

Time Lords did not become sick in love, he thought to himself.

But then, most Time Lords did not meet Rose Tyler, which made all the difference in the universe.

He didn't deserve her. That he knew was perfectly true.

Her hand drifted towards his own, which was resting on the dark wooden table.

Should he take her hand? Was that what she was asking for? Maybe she was just resting her hand on the table too. He didn't want to assume. Except that he did, because he really, really wanted to hold her hand.

The truth was that he had been up for the majority of the night, as he was most nights, but instead of making repairs and reading enormous tomes (before Rose was around, he used to do fun stuff too, but now he didn't like to do that kind of stuff, like make banana splits and hours-long movie marathons, unless Rose was with him, because it really wasn't the same or fun at all without her) he thought about Rose, and what he was going to do about his realization that he loved her, most completely. But once he started thinking about Rose, he started thinking about her eyes and how profound they were and also how they twinkled; how, in that moment that she was about to give him well-deserved grief for doing something daft, they flashed with warmth that made him melt inside.

He started thinking, too, about her lips and how perfectly pink and beautiful they were. They were full and lush, and from his previous experiences, even if it hadn't really been Rose kissing him exactly, they had been really amazing to kiss. He'd kissed back both times. Did she know that?

He wondered if he would ever be able to kiss them again, if she would let him. He kept admonishing himself for thinking about silly things like lips and eyes and lovely blond hair, because, damnit, he was a Time Lord, and Time Lords spend their downtime thinking about galaxies and stars and paradoxes and other timey-wimey things, not humans.

But then he considered for a moment that none of the things he was thinking about, namely the lips, the eyes, and the lovely blond hair, was silly at all, because they belonged to Rose, and she was easily, _easily_ the most important thing in the universe to him. And because he was the last Time Lord in existence, she was, by proxy, the most important thing in the universe to Time Lords in general.

So he reached over and grabbed her hand. She didn't twitch or pull away.

He heard her breath catch in her throat, and from the corner of his eyes, he saw her mouth jerk slightly into a smile. Her eyes beamed. So did his.

He would tell her, because this was Rose and she deserved it. And it needed saying. If he was going to let this happen, it really needed saying.

**TBC**

**Thank you for reading! Please, please review! **


	3. Chapter 3

**I don't own Doctor Who!**

_Chapter 3: Bad Liar_

He wasn't sure if things could be simple. A life with Rose would _not _be simple—logistically and for hundreds of other reasons.

What he really meant was that a life _with _Rose would not be simple. Like _with_ her with her.

But life simply with her, just being her friend, just eating breakfast and lunch and dinner with her, just laughing and holding hands, just telling off-color jokes together, just saving the universe on a regular basis, that was becoming less and less simple as well.

He _wanted_ simple. He wanted the simplicity he felt when he held Rose's hand. They did that a lot more now, even when they weren't running. But he could feel Time, or something, trying to make things difficult for him.

His love for her should be impossible. She was human, he was Time Lord. He'd gone over this difference over and over again to himself. He was quite aware of it. It was a problem that really inspired so many more problems that weren't exactly solvable with a swish of his Sonic Screwdriver.

But his hearts simply plugged their ears and whistled loudly in a petulant "I can't hear you! I can't hear you!" kind of way.

His hearts, then, were irrevocably stubborn and hell-bent on loving Rose. His mind was too, mostly, the part of his mind that loved humanity, the part of his mind that made him rescue Earth from itself and from a litany of unsavory alien interlopers.

The other part of his mind was on the fence. After all, it loved Rose too, but it also saw the problems of a Time Lord loving a human. It was the smart part of him, the part that should probably win because its principles weren't flawed and it meant well, but damnit, it wasn't exactly pulling any heartstrings.

This was the part of him who wasn't sure if life _with_ Rose could be simple, and the part that wouldn't let him say those three very important words that he knew needed saying.

"Banana?" he heard her say, the sweet but lilted sound of her voice breaking him out of his reverie.

"Huh?"

"Banana. Do you want one?"

They were standing hand-in-hand next to a refreshment stand in Hyde Park sometime in 2012. She'd spotted chocolate-covered frozen bananas and dragged him over before he even realized where she was taking him, he had been so deep within his thoughts.

"Ah, yes. Of course!" He brought his lips back up into the crooked smile that made her eyes twinkle, and if the thumping of her pulse in her wrist against his hand, it made her heart quicken too. That gave him hope.

She handed him a banana and paid the man at the counter and they turned to find themselves a spot on the wrought iron fence that enclosed the park.

"What were you thinkin' about, just then? You looked a million years away."

He laughed nervously and pulled on his ear, wanting very much to make eye contact with her melty-brown eyes, but knowing that if he did that he might say something rash.

"Oh, you know, little thingy in the TARDIS needs some work. Couldn't Sonic it. Might have to resort to brute force. Old girl won't like that too much-"

"You're a right bad liar, you know."

"Yeah, that bad?"

"No one'd believe you." She stepped closer to him, making his hearts race even more. She still held his hand tightly.

"Believe what?" he asked, attempting to scrape enough time to get his heart rates back down to normal.

"That you were thinking about TARDIS repairs. You have a banana in one hand and my hand in your other. You weren't thinking about the TARDIS."

"What are you suggesting, Rose Tyler?" he said, raising his eyebrow.

She blushed slightly, but smiled so that she bit her tongue with her front teeth, and looked up at him through her long, dark eyelashes.

"I just think that if you've got two things that I suspect you like very much in such close proximity, you aren't exactly thinking of wires or whatever it is you work on when you're under that thing."

Specifically, this was not exactly true. He was thinking about the TARDIS in a certain capacity, but not in a way that he could mention casually, and definitely not in a way that involved a lot of clothing, or any.

"I think that I like the things I've got 'in such close proximity' _more_ than very much."

"Yeah?" she asked.

"Definitely."

"You've always had weird sort of romance with bananas, though. I'll admit, they're growing on me, too."

"Ah, Rose, but I don't mean the banana. I mean, I do, because bananas _are_ wonderful. But really, though, really I mean-"

"Wait," she said, looking at him square in the eye. "Are…are you sure you want to say it?"

"What?"

"You don't have to say it yet. If you say it now, your brain might not catch up with your mouth. You'll regret it. I just don't want you to regret it when…if you say it."

"Rose," he said, taking a deep breath that he found was surprisingly necessary. "I wouldn't ever regret it. I never regret telling you things that I mean. You deserve to hear them."

He too stepped closer after having licked the stick clean of his chocolate-covered banana.

"It's just-" he attempted.

"It's just what?"

"I just…sometimes I feel like the universe might be out to get me. I worry about you, too. I worry about how dangerous it is for you to travel with me. I think about how much it would break my heart to see you hurt again or worse…" he couldn't say it. "I'm worried that if I say it, if I tell you, then our clock will start, and we'll just be counting down to some horrible, unknown, and empty end."

"But you can't know that," she returned.

"No, but I can _feel_ it. I've been alive a long time."

"But how many times…" she started. "How many times have you…"

"Have I what?" He was looking at her with dark, piercing eyes. It gave her a chill as she returned his gaze.

"You've been alive a long time. And I know that you've done things and been places that I can't even fathom—met people that I can't even imagine. But.." She breathed in and out deliberately, bracing herself for what she was about to say. "Doctor, how many times have you been in love?"

He looked down at her, suddenly acutely aware of their difference in height. He could really appreciate the cut of her blouse from this angle.

He smiled.

"Just once."

**TBC!**

**Thanks for reading. I'm not sure how much more I'm going to write of this. Right now the length is indefinite, I'm kind of just writing as I go along. Improvisational fiction, if you will.**

**Please, please review!**


	4. Chapter 4

**I don't own Doctor Who!**

**A/N: This is an interlude where we hear Rose's side of the story, since I know we've mostly been hearing from just the Doctor. It might be a little cheesy, but I think it's appropriate.**

_Chapter 4: Rose_

For a long time, never mind for the moment just how long, Rose had been feeling particularly happy when she held the Doctor's hand. It was a warm sort of feeling that emanated from her chest where her heart was beating extraordinarily fast, and flushed out into her stomach and her arms and fingers so that they tingled. The entire sensation was quite pleasant, but she hoped he didn't notice, as that would be limitlessly embarrassing.

For all intents and purposes, Rose was quite certain that she had been in love before. She quite liked Mickey. He had made her feel special and loved, but there was something—for now she couldn't really put her finger on it—that was lacking. Perhaps it was the lack of adventure in his eyes, or hiscomplacency with the trajectory of his life. Maybe it was both of these things. But somehow things with Mickey fell apart after she met the Doctor.

When she looked at him, the Doctor, she felt like she was looking at someone she had known for a very long time, even if they had only been travelling together for a year. It was a weird feeling, knowing so much and so little about somebody, and trusting them implicitly with all but one thing.

That was her trouble. She couldn't do it. She couldn't tell him or he might take her home. Back to Mickey, back to Jackie, back to the shop. She didn't want that. She would content herself—because she had to—with the life she had with him now: fellow travelers, best friends, occasionally partners in crime. That solution worked well enough for her mind. Her mind could keep up with that; it was a logical assessment and a reasonable deal. Her heart, though, that part of her that flew like the wings of a hummingbird, that part was dangerously close to slipping. It was angry with her for holding back. It was curious and wanted to know how his lips would feel against her own. It was passionate and completely impractical. And it would have to wait. It would have to be patient. Maybe forever.

Rose wasn't usually one to be silent on these sorts of issues. She was a strong woman with an opinion, and she could get what she wanted.

Somehow, though, she knew that this time she should wait for him to roll first. If she initiated, she might frighten him away. He would think that Rose was too attached, which she was, and that it would be dangerous for her to stay with him. She knew that he worried about her, and that it would probably kill him to send her away, even if he knew it was for the best. And she knew he would to it anyway if he had to, even if it shattered him.

Her mind countered, reminding her that she was just a companion. Why should _she _be so special to a Time Lord over nine hundred years old? She shouldn't, she thought, because it wasn't possible.

She couldn't trust him with her heart. Because he was under no circumstances, no compulsion, no desire to want it. Even though he already did—have it, that is—and he just didn't know it.

She wondered if she could ever be enough for him. If maybe—just a lowly human, pink and yellow, and slowly withering away—Rose could make him happy. It _seemed_ like she made him smile, a genuine smile that made her feel lovely and warm. Sometimes she thought she saw a glint of real affection behind those smiles. And when he thought she wasn't looking, she thought maybe in some impossible corner of her mind, maybe there might be love there.

She loved him. Irrevocably. Totally. She loved him almost to the point of self-destructiveness. It was not a healthy kind of love: it desperately needed to be reciprocated. She hadn't loved Mickey like this. She may have loved him, yes. In a way that she liked the way he laughed and cared about her, but not in a way that made her feel extraordinary. But loving the Doctor—that made her feel extraordinary—and vulnerable, and hopeless, and the full weight of a futile universe.

So yes. Yes, she had loved before. She knew that. But she had never loved anyone like she loved the Doctor. _Sometimes_, she thought, _it is unrequited love that's strongest._

She wasn't sure if she'd heard that somewhere before, or if her mind was being particularly creative in the sulky mood she was in, but she thought it colored her mood all the same.

Sometimes she just wished he'd say something, anything. Like, "Rose Tyler, I have never been attracted to you. That's complete rubbish. Silly Rose," just so she could know one way or another. Sometimes she got brave enough to sort of assert herself, moments that teetered on the edge between best friendship and something more. Like one morning when she put her hand on the kitchen table for him to hold, if he was so in inclined. It turned out he was. That gave her hope.

Ideally, if he said something, he would say, "Rose Tyler, I love you quite a lot." Maybe he would kiss her. She would, no doubt, be another woman in a line of women he had loved during his long life. Maybe, if he did love her, she was the only human he'd ever loved. Maybe his list of past loves wasn't such a long one, but he was completely irresistible, how couldn't it be? But where were they now? Had he fallen out of love with all of them; had they all died in the destruction of Gallifrey?

That would be tragic, for him. The idea of losing everyone you've ever loved.

And if he ever loved anyone as hard as she loved him, that would be like losing everything, because it _would_ be losing everything. She couldn't imagine such pain for him.

She thought she needed to know.

"But how many times…" she started, feeling her pulse become almost ragged in her throat. "How many times have you…"

"Have I what?" His dark eyes made her shiver. She wanted so much to pull him closer, to kiss him, to tell him everything, to really, really tell him.

"You've been alive a long time. And I know that you've done things and been places that I can't even fathom—met people that I can't even imagine. But…" She tried to steady her voice, bracing herself for rejection, even though her question wasn't really about _her _at all. "Doctor, how many times have you been in love?"

He looked down at her. She saw him looking at her with a look of fierce conviction, a look that was slightly manic, possessed by fervor in a way that would have scared anyone who didn't know him. She inhaled deeply, her chest raising and lowering slowly as she struggled to maintain her composure.

He smiled.

"Just once."

**A/N: This chapter is admittedly a bit of a tease, but I felt like I should get some of Rose's thoughts out there. Hopefully it's not too mopey, I just really wanted to parse out how I thought Rose was feeling when she was with the Doctor. Please, please review!**


	5. Chapter 5

**I don't own Doctor Who!**

**A/N: This one has a lower word count than usual, but I just didn't want to stretch it too far just for the sake of length.**

_Chapter 5: Say It_

"Once?" she said so quietly that he thought he might have imagined it.

"Yeah." The corner of his mouth turned up into a heart wrenching crooked smile.

"Like, like you mean you've only loved one person…once?" She knew she sounded silly, but her brain hadn't totally caught up with is words.

"What else would it mean?" he asked, his eyebrows arching up.

"I…I dunno." She looked away, her eyes filling with tears she could not find the reason for. Was it that she _knew_ that he must be talking of someone else who died long ago, or who he could never see again? Was it that he said it in such a fierce tone that suggested that he would never love again?

"Rose, what's wrong?" He was confused. He thought he had made himself _quite_ clear.

Her eyes met his, and she mopped her eyes with her sleeve.

"Oh, nothin'. You know me, I'm fine."

"Yeah, sure, right. 'Fess up, Rose. What's goin' on?"

"It's just…I know you'll say no. And I don't want you to take this the wrong way, I guess, because I just want to stay here, with you. Always. No matter what."

"Okay…" he replied warily. "You know, _I_ want you to stay with me here always, too, yeah?"

"You do?"

"Yeah, I thought you knew that." He said it more as a question. Surely Rose knew at least how much he saw her as _so_ vital and important to him, even if she was currently experiencing a massive blind spot in other areas.

"Right, yeah. It's just…do you think you'll ever love anyone again…someday?"

"No, I don't think so, Rose."

"Oh, right, then. Okay." She inhaled deliberately and her body shook from the sobs she was trying to restrain. "Shall we go back to the TARDIS, then?" She pulled away and started walking back in the direction of the Hyde Park Corner Tube station where they'd come from parking the TARDIS in Holborn.

"Rose!" he said, grabbing her arm. She tried to wriggle away, but he pulled her back to him.

"Nice try, Rose. Firstly, I'm the one holding the Oyster cards. Secondly, actually, this one should actually be firstly, now that I think of it. I'm rubbish at this."

"What are you on about, Doctor? I'm hungry. I wanna get chips before we leave, yeah?"

This was a lie, she didn't really want chips that badly. And she definitely wasn't hungry. She just didn't want to be standing here in front of him with her heart breaking all over the pavement.

"You're being ridiculous," he said flatly.

"_I'm_ being ridiculous? Says the man physically restraining me from walking away." She tried to wrench her arm away, but it wasn't working. Some Superior Time Lord strength bollocks, probably.

"Rose, just listen!" His eyes were dark, almost angry, but not quite. They mostly looked panicked. "Why are we even arguing?"

"I dunno…"

"I think…I think I do."

"Do tell, then," she said with an edge in her voice that she didn't really mean.

"It's because you're stubborn and impossible."

"What!" She wore a look of outrage.

"Let me finish! It's because you're stubborn and impossible. _And _because you're smart, Rose. You're so smart. But honestly, Rose, you're jumping to conclusions!"

If they carried on like this, they were going to attract a crowd. They were in the middle of Hyde Park during the Olympics, after all.

"Just be quiet for a minute and let me finish."

She nodded her assent and crossed her arms, looking at him in confusion.

"It's because you're stubborn and impossible-"

"You've made _that _quite clear, thank you."

"Shh! I'm not done!"

He lowered his voice and began again.

"I told you that I've only been in love once, yeah? Who did you think I was talking about?"

She looked up at him, her eyes widening.

"I…I guess I thought that you meant someone on Gallifrey. Or someone you met a long time ago, someone who you can never see again. Someone that you loved so hard that you can't open your heart up again."

"There was no one I loved on Gallifrey, Rose. Or anywhere else."

"The TARDIS, then?" her voice was full of cowardice, her heart unwilling to take the leap it so desperately wanted to take for fear of being wrong.

He chuckled loudly at hearing this, and pulled her close.

"I love the TARDIS, but I hardly _love_ the TARDIS."

"Who were you talking about, then?" she asked.

"Oh, Rose Tyler, I think you know very well who I was talking about."

"Then say it." She didn't want mistakes or misunderstandings. She didn't want half-truths or sneaking suspicions. She just wanted to know. And she wanted to know from his lips.

"You, Rose. Of course I meant you. Who else?"

"Literally _anyone_ in the entirety of Time and Space?" she asked weakly.

"Rose, I just told you that I _love_ you. Please stop pretending that you aren't good enough. It's a bit mopey, really."

"You're serious, then."

"When am I not serious?"

She arched her eyebrow distinctively and he smiled.

He wanted to let her know. It was time to say it, again and fully. If he didn't say it now, the opportunity might be stolen away from him, slip into a void. These were words that needed saying more than anything else in the universe. More than "Bad Wolf" more than "We are not amused" more than "Allons-y" which was a very important one. She was everything and the world.

"When I tell you that I've only been in love once, I mean with you, and I mean always. And I didn't even know until it was already deafeningly clear."

She inhaled raggedly and she pushed herself closer and rested her head on his chest, listening to the rhythm of his hearts.

"Show me."

**A/N: One more chapter after this! Please review! I'll love you forever. It gives me motivation to write more! **


	6. Chapter 6

**I don't own Doctor Who!**

_Chapter 6: Finally_

Touch was imperative.

But he placed his hands around her shoulders, so he cupped each one gently, and pushed her slightly away from him so that he might look down at her. The sensation of the cool air that cut between them was unwelcome, and his body cringed, wanting to pull her back. He needed to look at her.

He took is finger and placed it under her chin, tilting her head up so that their eye contact was full and decided. This was the moment. Not his moment, because it was as much hers as it was his; it was _their_ moment.

Slowly, and yet almost as if it were at the speed of light, he brought his lips to her forehead and placed a delicate kiss, taking in her scent, marking it down in his infinite catalogue. Yes, he already knew the smell, in that he knew the smell of Rose and how it fit so nicely into the other smells and sensations in his life: the smell of the TARDIS, the smell of a good suit, the smell of tea, the smell of jam and biscuits, of the Time Vortex.

But now he smelled something different. It was the smell of Rose, yes, but it was more potent—full of pheromones or something—and it was sweet and compelling and absolutely delightful.

He needed more, and moved down the plains of her face to her nose, where he planted an equally gentle kiss with silent reverence.

She moaned softly, enjoying the attention, but wanting more. She wanted to kiss him and kiss him hard. She wanted, even though they were in a park full of people, to kiss him with her lust and her need, to snog him within an inch of regeneration. But she had to know that he wanted this too, and she let him proceed as his own pace.

"Rose, your heart is beating like a humming bird. Are you okay?" He asked, looking down at her again and pulling his face into a weak but pleased sort of smile.

"This is what you do to me," she replied, blushing. Her voice was choked with desire. "I think you should kiss me again, yeah?"

"Yeah," he said. He reached around her head and weaved his fingers through her hair, placing the other on the small of her back, and pulled her flush against him, so that he could feel her heart pounding against his body. The distance closed between them and their lips met, joining purposefully and finally. Time and space calmed within his mind, the processes that ran overtime all the time slowed slightly, clearing space for him to enjoy the kiss, to really feel it.

When he had kissed her to remove the Time Vortex, he wanted it to have been a kiss like this, but he was trying to save her life. He had reasoned with himself at the time that if he kissed her now with the intent of saving her, maybe one day he could kiss her with the intent of just kissing her, and maybe in some impossible universe, with the intent of loving her.

When she had kissed him, or really, when Cassandra had kissed him, he hadn't been kissing Rose. It was like kissing some cheap imitation. It felt like Rose in that it felt like her skin and her hair and her lips, but it was nothing like Rose really _felt_. It was a kiss that savored strongly of the desperation and jadedness that made up Cassandra.

This time, though, it was perfect. Their lips smashed against each other, struggling clumsily at first to find a rhythm. He felt desperation in this kiss too, but not the bitter desperation he had experienced before. This was desperation for each other. Specifically for each other. Rose for her Doctor and the Doctor for his Rose.

She brought her hands up to his head, now placing _her_ fingers in _his_ hair, willing the kiss to continue. His tongue slipped into her mouth, discovering its wet, delicious texture and savoring the flavor.

She nibbled at his lower lip, causing him to moan into her mouth, and also alerting her to the fact that they were, in fact, still very much quite in public, and that their display of affection was beginning to border on indecent.

"Doctor, we should get out of here before we get into trouble."

"Nope," he said, reaching an open mouth kiss for her jaw line, "Psychic paper. All good."

"Not all good. I don't know if you've been paying attention, but you've managed to get your hands most of the way up my skirt. There are children here. I don't think the psychic paper is going to get us out of the kind of trouble we're headed for."

He sighed, knowing this was true. They would need to relocate back to the TARDIS. The TARDIS, did, though, have the added advantage of complete privacy and the great expanse of Time and Space, so if they got bored on the TARDIS, they could simply take themselves elsewhere, anywhere.

Rose was breathing heavily, not wanting to leave their spot anymore than he did.

"Rose, I need you-"

"—back to the TARDIS."

He smiled, finally relenting, knowing she was right.

"Let's go home, Rose."

He grabbed her hand, warm and soft in his own, and they ran together.

"Do you want this, Rose?" he asked, staring her intensely in the eye, so that she would understand both his meaning and the magnitude of how much he meant it.

They had pushed open the TARDIS doors with unnecessary vigor, and he pressed her against the wall, trapping her gently between himself and the soft orange coral of the console room.

"Yes, very much," she replied and kissed him tenderly on the throat where she could reach. "If you do."

"I think I need this."

"I think I do too."

He kissed her firmly, his hands resuming their previous journey, working up her waist, over her ribcage, and skimming the bottom of her bra, causing her body to shiver with anticipation.

He stopped suddenly, drawing her attention with his eyes again.

"I need to make sure you know something first, Rose, okay?"

"Okay…"

"I…I want you. But I want you because I love you. I _love_ you, Rose. And if this is going to happen, I want it to happen again, not just this once. I want you to know…because…I'm trying to say that…I know it might be stupid or foolish when you consider all of the factors—my long life and your brief one, the fact that I'm so old and you're so young—but I want something with you. I'm ready to do that. I'm tired of being a coward. I want to be brave. I want to be brave and be with you."

"I love you, Doctor. Always. Nothing else. Just you with me as long as we can have."

She moved against him and kissed his neck, working her way behind his ear and up to his temple.

"I love you, Doctor. I've loved you for…for a very long time."

He grinned wildly and kissed her tenderly, trying to communicate all of his reverence, his love, his adoration, and desperation that he had dammed up for so long and letting it all rush forward.

"Thank you," she sighed, pulling away from the kiss.

"For what?"

"For telling me."

**A/N: Done! Thanks so much for reading and all your reviews so far. Please let me know what you think! :)**


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